A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Sunday 29 November 2009

The Crooked Knife & The Items You Can Make With One.

“The most valuable things I own are my axe, my wife and my crooked knife.”
—Blue Coat, a Northern Cree

“Almost unknown today, this knife is one of the most distinctive antiquities of the ‘Man of the North.’”
—Carl Russell, Firearms, Traps and Tools of the Mountain Men

“No man ever goes off on a journey without this knife, no matter how short the distance … and to make one thousand and one indispensable objects.”
—John Wesley Powell, Curator, U.S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1898

Every object has a story. The better we know the story the more we appreciate the object.
—Axiom of curators and collectors

In the realm of material culture, the tool for making an object is often as important as the object itself.
—Axiom of anthropologists

“No one will know why such a dull stub of a blade found such a fanciful handle, as if the one who gripped it
fought with ghosts.”
—From a poem, Worn Tool, by Stephen Sandy








Early 17th Century crooked knife blade.

War Club.

Ball Headed Club.

Ball Headed Club.

Rifle Stock Club.

Spiked War Club.

Spiral Tomahawk Helve.

A Lacross Stick.

Wooden Eating Spoon.

Wooden Eating Spoon.

Whet Stone Holder.

6 comments:

Tim Noble said...

Nice. Love your blog. Such nteresting stuff.

Keith said...

Thanks Tim, I appreciate your comments.
Regards, Le Loup.

Unknown said...

hi keith,how were the ball headed clubs made,were they from burrs already on the limb?

Keith said...

I did not make these, but I have made one ball headed club and a rifle stock club, I have been searching for the pics and can't find them. Will have to take more.
The one I made was not from a burl, but where it branched. Good examples can be found where a tree falls, and then limbs grow straight up from the trunk.
Other examples are as on the travois I made, with the butt ends curved upward as regrowth.

Unknown said...

you will have to dig out them pics now lol..i found a small burl on a dogwood limb,i may give it a go..

Keith said...

I hope it works out my Friend, and if it does I look forward to seeing some pics.
Regards.